A revelatory portrait of an empress

History has not been kind to China’s Empress Dowager Cixi. Credit for her numerous achievements is generally given to the men who served her. She’s been called a ruthless tyrant and murderer, and those in power after her claimed to be cleaning up yet another of her unforgivable messes. Were any of this true, the criticism might be forgivable. However, author Jung Chang (Wild Swans)...

The comedy and the tragedy of Richard Pryor

When he died in 2005—his body weakened by years of freebasing cocaine, as well as heart disease, multiple sclerosis and a freak accident with a cigarette lighter that had set him ablaze in 1990—Richard Pryor had already won one Emmy and five Grammys. Yet his position at number one on Comedy Central’s list of the all-time greatest comedians defines his enduring legacy more than...

The legend of Red Cloud, forgotten until now

While Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Geronimo are embedded far more solidly in American folklore, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin contend that Red Cloud, the relatively obscure Oglala Sioux chief, was the most cunning and effective Indian general to confront the U.S. Army during the stampede of Western expansion that followed the Civil War. Prolonged war, with specific territorial aims, had not been an...

A former friend tells all

For 30 years, Johnny Carson carried his comic monologues and acidly funny interview questions into America’s living rooms and bedrooms on “The Tonight Show.” Although at least two unauthorized biographies—Ronald L. Smith’s Johnny Carson (1987) and Paul Corkery’s Carson (1987)—appeared during his lifetime, the definitive or authorized biography has yet...

The Dragon Lady gets her due

Western culture has for many decades harbored a unfair, ugly but persistent stereotype of the Evil Asian Woman, supposedly exemplified by a series of women in powerful positions: China’s Dowager Empress. Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Imelda Marcos. The target of the 1960s was Madame Nhu, the sister-in-law of Ngo Dinh Diem, the authoritarian ruler of Vietnam who was killed in an American-backed...

Portrait of a Muppet-master

It’s hard to see Jim Henson’s name in print without immediately thinking of the Muppets, those deceptively simple-looking puppets who seemed to bring forth a full range of human emotions. Two things we learn quickly in Jim Henson: The ­Biography are that the effort involved in bringing the Muppets to life was astronomical, and that Henson chafed at being forever associated with...

The definitive biography of our 28th President

Born in Virginia in 1856 to a Presbyterian minister of modest means, Thomas Woodrow Wilson first flowered as an academic. He joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1890, became one of the school’s most beloved professors and was elevated to its presidency 12 years later. Throughout this period of intensive teaching and public lecturing, he published a torrent of magazine articles...

What made Manson

It has been 44 years since Charles Manson manipulated members of his so-called Family into murdering pregnant actress Sharon Tate and eight other people in a delusional attempt to spark “Helter Skelter,” the end-of-the-world race war that Manson had convinced his followers would lead to their rise as saviors of the world.Crazy stuff like this has a long shelf life. In the almost...

Don't mess with Mother Kennedy

Just when you think not another word could be written about the family with which Americans have a seemingly insatiable fascination, biographer Barbara A. Perry makes use of newly released papers to paint a fuller picture of Rose Kennedy than ever before in Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch.Through letters and diaries, Perry depicts Rose Kennedy as a complicated,...

Between the lines of Anne Frank's diary

Like millions of American children, I read and reread Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, mesmerized by the journal of her two years spent in hiding from the Nazis. Yet the book always remained somewhat cryptic for my young mind: What exactly was an “annex”? Why did Anne and her sister Margot call their father Pim? If Anne was German, why did she live in Holland?Reading Anne Frank:...